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Loss motivates Marcus Davis [Boston Herald]
(Boston Herald (MA) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Nov. 15--Marcus Davis would love to put UFC 99 behind him. Davis lost a split-decision to Dan Hardy in June in a matchup that had extra meaning because of pre-fight trash talk.
Davis is looking forward to getting back in the Octagon to face Ben Saunders on Saturday at UFC 106 in Las Vegas, but he can't help but look back because there is no doubt in Davis' mind that he beat Hardy.
Even as Davis has turned his focus to Saunders, part of what is driving him is the hope of landing a rematch with Hardy.
"What I hope happens in a perfect world, I win this fight in an impressive fashion, Dan Hardy loses his fight with (Mike Swick at yesterday's UFC 105) and that sends him back to me, and I meet him wherever," said Davis, who is from Houlton, Maine, and trains at Sityodtong in Somerville. "That's the fight I'd like to do again. I still feel I won the fight."
Davis didn't get his wish, as Hardy won a decision against Swick yesterday.
Davis (21-6) will enter the fight against Saunders (7-1-2) on the heels of of what he deemed the best training camp of his career. Davis embarked on a new program with strength and conditioning coaches Garth Krane and Kevin Kearns, focusing on developing his fast-twitch muscles and explosive power.
The results have been impressive.
Krane devised a workout that calculated how many punches Davis could throw in one second based on how long it took Davis to throw 160 punches.
A former boxer who racked up a 17-1-2 record in a 10-year ring career, Davis already had fast hands. He was throwing 3.4 punches per second when he began the program 10 weeks ago. By last week, Davis was snapping off 5.7 punches per second.
"There was a time that I had really quick hands," the welterweight said. "I used to fight at 138 pounds or 145 pounds years ago when I was a boxer. Even though I'm walking around at 190 now, I think my hands are faster at 190 than they were when I was a 140-pound boxer. That's why I'm really excited to show that."
Fighters like to say they "live in the gym." But Davis means it when he says it.
Davis spent four weeks during this camp living in a tiny apartment in the back of Sityodtong, the basement-level gym in Somerville where he works with trainer Mark DellaGrotte. Davis could literally roll out of bed and hit the mats.
"Training has gone absolutely perfect," Davis said. "We've taken a different approach to this camp. The approach we're taking is 'speed kills' and that's the theme. Any time I can go in and showcase new skills and kind of show another part of me, I always get excited."
Always motivated, Davis has the loss against Hardy to thank for adding some extra fuel to his fire.
"I'm a fighter anyways so regardless of what's going on, I don't need extra motivation," Davis said. "But it does help that to get where I want to be and maybe get that fight with (Hardy) again, I need to get through Saunders."
Though UFC 106 is a pay-per-view card, the Davis-Saunders fight is one of two featured undercard card bouts that will air for free on Spike TV beginning at 9 p.m.
Davis says fans will see a different fighter than his last fight.
"I'm extremely confident right now," Davis said. "With this fight, if I stick to Mark's plan and I go out there and I do it exactly the way it should be, I should get a real quick win out of this."
Lauzon climbs summit
Joe Lauzon, an East Bridgewater native and Wentworth Institute of Technology graduate, felt as though he was back in school two weeks ago. Lauzon was in Las Vegas at the UFC's "Fighter Summit," a one-day conference designed to educate fighters on a wide range of topics.
The summit was held in a conference room in the Red Rock Casino in Vegas, with the UFC picking up the tab for the fighters' travel arrangements. While not mandatory, Lauzon estimated that 75 percent of the organization's fighters attended one of the three sessions.
Topics ranged from a discussion of drugs and steroids with DEA agents to money management in a counseling session with finance experts. To Lauzon, the most interesting aspect of the conference focused on public relations.
"They talked to us about using things like Twitter and Facebook, and the importance of it and how much it can help build a fanbase," Lauzon said. "Basically right now, we're making good money on a per-fight basis, but there's no retirement money when it comes to fighting. It's all about building a brand. We should all be running our careers basically as a business."
While he learned a few new things, the former computer network administrator was happy to find that he was ahead of the curve on social networking. Lauzon has almost 7,000 Twitter followers, another 5,000 fans on Facebook and updates a blog on his own Web site (joelauzon.com) regularly.
Lauzon said the summit was a valuable experience and he appreciates that the UFC took the time to educate its fighters.
"My theory is that if you're good to the UFC, the UFC is good to you," Lauzon said. "I feel like a lot of people that have trouble are people that start trying to treat it like a business. It ends up working out that it's the higher-up fighters that are trying to get what they feel they're worth and everything like that. But for me, I've always just kind of gone with the flow and I've never had any problems."
In addition to training for his Jan. 2 fight against Sam Stout at UFC 108, Lauzon has been playing "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2," on his Xbox 360 since it was released last week.
An avid gamer, Lauzon waited outside the GameStop in Bridgewater for the midnight release last Tuesday and stayed up until the wee hours playing. But fear not, Lauzon has his priorities in order. He put down the controller Tuesday afternoon for a boxing session and he is confident he'll be able to balance his hobby with his profession.
danduggan@bostonherald.com
To see more of the Boston Herald or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.bostonherald.com.
Copyright (c) 2009, Boston Herald
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
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